Purchased unauthorized subdivide flip

[Steven Barr]

I purchase a property in Atlanta with hard money. Call it “123 Main Street”. I pulled permits through the city of Hapeville and did a full gut renovation. I am now being told by the city that they will not turn on water or issue a CO. 

Apparently the tract of land that my house is on was all 1 tract of land with 6 houses on it. The previous owner owned the land and all 6 houses. He then decided he wanted to subdivide the land into 6 parcels for each house so he could sell them off individually. The city of Hapeville told him no. So he filed through Fulton county and they processed the subdivision. So now, Fulton county recognizes the subdivision and the new address as “123 Main Street” , but the City of Hapeville does not recognize the subdivision or the new address. They recognize it as the old address “789 East Street” on an unsubdivided lot

(My deed and settlement statement are recorded as “123 Main” and all utilities companies have property in their system as “789 East”

Title did not say anything/raise issues when going through closing process. There are other investors who purchased some of these 6 homes and we are all in the same boat now. Hard money loan and being told we cannot sell due to not having a CO and city’s unwillingness to issue one per the unauthorized subdivision 

What are my options here? This seems like an incredibly unusual circumstance. Not sure whose fault this is and not sure how to fix it 

Thanks for the help!

[Chris Seveney]

@Jay Hinrichs

Yep. There was just a post recently here on BP about someone looking for examples of where they should get an owners title policy. This would fit that one to a tee.

What has me curious is how did they get a permit ? Did they get any inspections up to this point? Usually for a building permit it goes through every department including zoning.